Tuk-tuk plagues Egyptian communities: lawmaker

CAIRO – 4 February 2018: Secretary of the Parliament’s transportation committee, Khaled Abdel Azeem, criticized the government for not taking actual steps to stop tuk-tuks from plaguing Egyptian communities and turning them into slums.

The government could not set up an integrated plan to face the unjustified spread of tuk-tuks, according to Abdel Azeem, although the government has warned repeatedly of the dangers tuk-tuks pose to society.

Abdel Azeem wondered why the government has not applied the Industry Ministry’s 2014 decision to stop importing tuk-tuks so as to take the first step towards ending the phenomenon. The ministry had decided in 2014 to ban tuk-tuks for a year as it had been used in crimes and terrorist attacks, according to the government.

In November, a tuk-tuk caused the death of seven students when it plunged off a road into a conduit in Beheira governorate, Delta.

Last September, while a police force was patrolling a town in Assiut, it suspected three people on a tuk-tuk vehicle, the ministry said in a statement. The three men opened fire at the force when it stopped them, according to the ministry. The force returned fire, killing one and wounding another. The third fled.

In the same month, a girl was killed and two others were severely injured after a tuk-tuk collided with a passenger train in Dishna, Qena, while trying to pass a railway crossing.

The U.S. embassy in Colombo warned its citizens who were visiting Sri Lanka in June to avoid travelling alone in tuk-tuks after a spate of sexual harassment complaints. "The U.S. embassy Colombo has been made aware of an increase in incidents involving tuk-tuk drivers in the Colombo area inappropriately touching female passengers," the embassy said in a statement.

A tuk-tuk (also known as auto rickshaw) is a common form of urban transportation. It is a development of the still available two-wheeled pulled rickshaw by which a runner draws a cart with a seat for one or two people. It is believed the pulled rickshaw was invented by Japan in the 19th century. Rickshaws then appeared in India, China and other big cities in Asia.